Communio viatorum is a theological journal from Central European perspectives founded in 1958 by J. L. Hromádka and J. B. Souček, published by the Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles University in Prague three times a year.
Mission statement
Communio Viatorum seeks to promote research and scholarly debate in all theological disciplines. Since its foundation special attention has been paid to both biblical studies and Czech Protestant history. The journal is also interested in articles that reflect new accents within the field of theology as well as relevant challenges from neighbouring disciplines, developments in the Church worldwide as well as new moves within society. It seeks to promote an ongoing process of theological debate from a specific Central European Protestant background, but open to authors from all around the world and all denominations who wish to engage in such a conversation.
The previous journal homapage with an archive of published issues
COMMUNIO VIATORUM, Vol 66 No 1 (2024), 38–50
Hope and Imagination: Theological Aspirations for Overcoming Violence
Sara Gehlin
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/30296374.2024.5
published online: 20. 09. 2024
abstract
This article highlights the imperative of building defences of peace in the human mind, articulated in the Constitution of UNESCO. Pursuing the question of how such defences can be built in contexts of religious antagonism, the article explores the work of ecumenical theologians who seek to find ways of building defences of peace in the minds of believers. The exploration involves intersecting ecumenical theology with the fields of religious education, cognitive science, and peace studies. In this way, the article brings introductory perspectives to interdisciplinary research that considers pressing questions of how to overcome violence and build peaceful communities. Throughout the investigation, hope and imagination serve as guiding concepts. Hope is discussed with regard to memory, change of perceptions, and the building of trust and peace. However, the article also considers the tendency towards constructing imagined enemies. Elucidating how empathetic imagination can provide resistance to this tendency, it discusses the way dialogue might break destructive habits of imagining the religious other as an enemy. With a view to this capacity of dialogue, the article considers the role of longstanding endeavours of ecumenical exchange in processes towards overcoming violence and constructing defences of peace in human minds.
keywords: Hope; Constitution of UNESCO; ecumenism; peace; empathetic imagination; imagined enemy; memory; dialogue
Hope and Imagination: Theological Aspirations for Overcoming Violence is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
